A chartered accountant for whom provision of high-quality K-12 education was his life’s mission, Dr. Bijaya Kumar Sahoo is widely credited for placing the educationally underserved eastern state of Odisha (pop.46 million) on the education map of India. In 2008, he forsook a successful accountancy practice to follow his dream of establishing an internationally benchmarked K-12 school in Bhubaneswar, the admin capital of Odisha. Since then, the CBSE-affiliated SAI International School (SIS) has established and consolidated its position as Odisha’s #1 day-cum-boarding school and has been ranked India #1 in the category of day-cum-boarding schools for the past three years including 2022-23, in the EducationWorld India School Rankings. SIS’ rapid rise in public esteem encouraged Dr. Sahoo to promote SAI Angan (estb.2015), billed as India’s largest preschool, the undergrad SAI International College of Commerce, Bhubaneswar (2015) and the CBSE-affiliated SAI International Residential School, Cuttack (2018). Currently, the SAI International Group’s four institutions have an aggregate 7,000 students mentored by 434 teachers on their muster rolls. For his outstanding service to education, in July 2019, Dr. Sahoo was appointed Advisor of the Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya Sangathan with the rank of minister of state to establish CBSE English-medium government schools in all 314 administrative blocks of Odisha state. A topper throughout school life, Sahoo graduated in 1982 from Utkal University and pressed on to qualify as a chartered accountant certified by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), in 1985. This professional education was topped with a law degree from University Law College, Bhubaneswar. A firm votary of continuous education, Dr. Sahoo also qualified as a works accountant certified by the Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) and was awarded an MBA in finance by the All India Management Association while practising as a chartered accountant. In 2011, he was awarded a Ph D in commerce by The Open International University, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Most recently in 2021, he was awarded the prestigious honorary degree of Doctor of Literature (honoris causa) by Utkal University from the Vice President of India. Unfortunately, in June 2021, Dr. Sahoo was struck down by the Covid-19 virus and despite being airlifted to Hyderabad’s premier KIMS Hospital, passed away in the prime of his eventful life — a great tragedy for Indian education. Since Dr. Sahoo’s untimely demise, the mantle of leadership of the SAI Group has devolved upon the capable shoulders of Dr. Silpi Sahoo, his companion of more than 35 years and co-founder of SAI Group of Institutions. Awarded a doctorate in women studies by Utkal University, Dr. Silpi has continued to build on the strong foundation constructed by her late husband. In public acknowledgement of the inestimable contribution that the late Dr. Bijaya Sahoo made to the growth, development and contemporisation of India’s — and especially Odisha’s — education system, it is the sad but necessary duty of the Editors and Board of Advisors of EducationWorld to posthumously confer our EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award upon the late…
An alumna of Osmania and Agra universities, Dr. Gita Karan is the Hyderabad-based founder-principal and director of the Gitanjali Group of five K-12 schools in the city of pearls. These schools have an aggregate 7,000 children and 500 teachers on their muster rolls. After a short stint as a teacher, she discerned a paucity of schools offering holistic education in Hyderabad and founded the CISCE-affiliated Gitanjali School in 1985. “Teaching was my true calling, I could not have achieved more in any other profession,” says Dr. Karan. The pioneer K-12 co-ed Gitanjali School established on a 1.5-acre campus in downtown Hyderabad was enthusiastically welcomed by upwardly mobile citizens of the city. Subsequently, with the school having attained full capacity and under pressure for admissions, Dr. Karan started a senior school in 1990 affiliated with the CISCE and Cambridge International, UK boards. Subsequently she promoted Gitanjali Devshala affiliated with the CISCE board (estb.1997); Gitanjali Devashray School (CBSE, 2003), Gitanjali Devakul (CBSE, 2014) and Gitanjali Vedika (CAIE, UK, 2020). Since then under Dr. Karan’s leadership Gitanjali schools have evolved into contemporary citadels of holistic K-12 education and have graduated hundreds of children, many of whom have risen to high positions in government, industry, business and social sector organisations. The pioneer Gitanjali School is routinely ranked among the Top 5 co-ed day schools of Telangana in the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings with all Gitanjali Group schools ranked among the Top 10. For her pioneer and exemplary contribution to the development of K-12 education in formerly united Andhra Pradesh and India, Dr. Karan has received numerous awards and encomiums. Currently she is the president of the AP/Telangana Association of CISCE schools. In 2004, she was awarded the National Award for Teachers by the Union HRD (now education) ministry. Dr. Karan is also the recipient of the National Integration Award of the Telangana state government. The trials and tribulations of children with special needs occupy a special place in Dr. Karan’s heart and mind. This prompted her to qualify in special needs education and establish elaborate, contemporary learning and development facilities for children with special needs with the objective of integrating them into mainstream schooling and higher education. Moreover, she produced a 45-minutes feature film titled Rihla, based on the life of a mentally challenged child from the school, which was showcased at several film festivals in India and abroad. “The purpose of education is to teach children to make a life and not a living. The skills and values which children pick up while still young helps them develop decision making skills. Sensitivity must be re-awakened to graduate integrated creative adults free from conflict and friendly towards mankind and nature,” says Dr. Karan. In appreciation and acknowledgement of her sustained effort to raise teaching-learning standards and for contemporisation of K-12 education in Telangana and India, the Editors and Board of Directors of EducationWorld are pleased to present Dr. Gita Karan the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award and induct her into the…
Ranjana Raghunathan, assistant professor, School of Liberal Arts and Design Studies, Vidyashilp University We live in a rapidly changing world where the youth need to grapple with newer challenges and chaos at a much faster pace. The social, economic, and ecological complexities wrought by rapid development, rising fundamentalisms, and environmental damage are unprecedented. There is a thrust in educational policy and institutions to prepare students to be ‘future-ready’. But what does it mean? How can one be prepared for the intensifying uncertainties of our world? What approaches in our innovation practices can provide solutions to the challenges of sustainability? Some of the salient features of the recent National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which can respond to these questions, are the emphasis in policy on holistic education, multidisciplinarity, ethics, and human values. A problem-solving approach has been customarily adopted by policy-makers, designers, or social innovators to respond to the complexities of our ever-changing world. Many of our solutions for social change are yet to be successful in grappling with our social realities. We are easily swayed by statistics and numbers, but I think a much greater emphasis to understand stories is essential – stories of people, communities, cultures, and the numerous histories of our contemporary moment. Ethnography as a practice of education Ethnography – a descriptive and immersive study of human societies – is a powerful way to engage and understand the nuances of social and cultural life. It originated in the practices of anthropologists who immersed themselves in the culture and everyday life of the people who were their subject of study. It is not merely a qualitative method of research, but a rigorous inquiry, “including long-term and open-ended commitment, generous attentiveness, relational depth and sensitivity to context”, as suggested by anthropologist, Tim Ingold. In other words, to practice ethnography is also a practice of education. Ethnography is a laboratory for exploring the human condition and opening new possibilities for thinking about human experiences. As a practice, it is one of leading ‘students’ out to the world, rather than imparting knowledge to their minds. It is a mode of learning based on participating, observing, and attending to the world; learning about the experience through experience. Instilling the youth with the skills necessary to attend to what others are saying and doing, and to follow along entails enormous risks. The risk of not knowing, exploring an unformed world, and being in a state of “continual emergence” (Tim Ingold) can be deeply disconcerting. Yet, this is the very skill and practice that the youth need, to deal with the uncertainties of our ever-changing world. Ethnography Lab at Vidyashilp University Vidyashilp University (VU) has a multidisciplinary approach to education with a focus on preparing students for life. In addition to domain depth, students are also given opportunities to develop leadership, self-awareness, confidence, and empathy, through a broad core curriculum and community engagement. In addition to critical reading and analysis skills that are often the backbone of higher education, we believe that empathetic and…
THEY FOUND WHAT? STORIES OF DARING DISCOVERIES BY INDIAN SCIENTISTS THEY MADE WHAT? STORIES OF INGENIOUS INVENTIONS BY INDIAN SCIENTISTS Shweta Taneja; HACHETTE INDIA; Rs.399; 288 pp HERE’S A welcome addition to popular-science writing for children in India. Shweta Taneja, the author, is passionate about familiarising children with the wonders of modern science and scientists, and has been doing so effectively. She has won several awards for her books and the one under review has been much appreciated as well. They found what? comprises 20 stories of Indian scientists pursuing their chosen fields and successfully overcoming barriers to arrive at their eureka moment. Most of these scientists are alive today and working. Through this book, Taneja has made contemporary science research in India accessible to young readers and adults, something to be welcomed. They found what? All types of things! Sanjeev Das, a biochemist, found ways to eliminate cancer cells; Manindra Agrawal, a professor at IIT-Kanpur, succeeded in making an equation for primality testing (something that had long eluded mathematicians); S.P. Vijayakumar, an ecologist discovered a frog that established a whole new genus, and so on. They made what? Again, a whole lot of things and much of it at a microscopic level: Ramgopal Rao made an electronic dog using nanotechnology to sniff out bombs; Divya Mudappa created a rainforest in the middle of a tea estate; Sonam, an engineer, discovered ice glaciers to solve Ladakh’s water woes, and so on. The biggest challenge in writing a book about scientific advances is to make it interesting to capture the imagination of children. Moreover, in a world flooded with scientific information on the internet, one has to write a book that offers something more than a dry compilation of facts. Thankfully, this book is more than a description of scientific breakthroughs and achievements; it is also about the people who made them happen. How does a child get interested in an idea and decide to follow it for the rest of her life? How does she find the path that would take her to fulfill her aim? How does the world help people who have a dream to follow? It is these questions that propel the reader towards an exciting finish. The author knits together the personalities of these scientists with their backgrounds and culture to create stories with rich human interest. At times, her prose becomes lyrical and evocative, which is unusual in non-fiction. For instance, “mathematics was an old haveli to Manindra. He would be sitting in a room full of people and his brain would fling open the door to an unused room, filled with images of equations, numbers, symbols and signs. A fresh idea or equation would beckon him as he stepped into the room, following its trail.” Although the author has tried to keep the narration free from jargon, the text becomes challenging in parts. It assumes that the reader has a certain level of knowledge and familiarity with scientific terminology and concepts, which may not…
HIMALAYAN CHALLENGE: INDIA, CHINA AND THE QUEST FOR PEACE Subramanian Swamy RUPA Rs.595 Pages 240 WITH THE just concluded 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) making global headlines, this is a good time to review Subramanian Swamy’s slim but informative book which suggests ways and means to mend Sino-India ties, slowly but surely, heading for the rocks. A Harvard educated economist and brilliant public intellectual, during a decades-long career Subramanian Swamy ruined his chances of attaining high public office by being too clever by half. A former Harvard professor, Swamy attained national fame when he publicly opposed the Emergency (1975-77) declared by prime minister Indira Gandhi. After the Emergency was lifted in 1977 and the Indira Gandhi-led Congress party was routed in the historic General Election of early 1977, Swamy served as a member of Parliament and later as a Union cabinet minister (1990-1991) and president of the opposition Janata Party before he signed up with the incumbent BJP, which nominated him to the Rajya Sabha in 2016, but didn’t renew his term in 2021. Although a sound economist and strident critic of neta-babu socialism of the Congress which ruined the high-potential Indian economy, Swamy blighted his promising career in Indian politics by espousing extreme causes such as abolition of income tax and intemperate criticism of politicians, including his own party leaders. Since then, he has been put out to pasture by the BJP leadership. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that Swamy, fluent in Mandarin, is a reputed scholar-analyst on China with deep knowledge of our giant neighbour country’s tumultuous history and galloping economy. In the very first chapter of this insightful volume, Swamy highlights the friendly, mutually beneficial China-India trade and cultural ties stretching over millennia. According to him, for over 2,000 years China was substantially ‘Sanskritised’, interpreted as ‘cultural borrowing’ by way of Mahayana Buddhism written in Sanskrit, which went to China as early as 1800 BCE and not 483 BCE as “Western writers claim, and the date that Indian historians are prone to recycle”. In support of this contention, Swamy cites Chinese scholars Fa Hsien and Yuan Chiang. However after the CPC, led by atheist Chairman Mao Zedong, seized power in China in 1949, it was hardly surprising that the communist leadership wanted to forget about 2,000 years of “cultural domination” by India. It’s important to remember that India attained its independence from foreign rule before the communists overran China. Therefore, independent India’s leaders and prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in particular, were globally acknowledged as harbingers of a new rising Asia, a status that was not palatable to Mao who had little more than contempt for India’s unprecedented satyagraha and ahimsa-driven freedom movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. An unrefined peasant and brutal dictator, Mao had little regard for human lives and suffering, and openly declared that “political power comes from the barrel of a gun”. Therefore one of the first initiatives of the CPC after it established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October…
LIKE THE BOURBON KINGS OF 16TH CENTURY France, members of the opposition Congress party refuse to learn from history. Despite this vintage political party (estb.1885) being roundly trounced in two successive General Elections (2014 & 2019), Congress has rejected the party presidency bid of erudite and charismatic Dr. Shashi Tharoor, former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and author of 21 books covering history, sociology, divinity among other subjects. Tharoor’s defeat in the first internal election of the Congress party in 22 years, is bad news for all believers in democracy, because it ensures the Nehru-Gandhi family’s domination of Congress, which until it was routed by the BJP in General Election 2014 and again in 2019, ruled India for over half a century. After the BJP swept to power a decade ago, although Congress has the largest number of opposition seats (53) in the 543-strong Lok Sabha, it has been reduced to a shadow of its former glory, with an exodus of leaders and members shifting their allegiance to BJP which with its Hindu majoritarian agenda seems set to win the next General Election scheduled for 2024. At a deeper level, reluctance of the Congress to change the status quo — the mild-mannered Mallikarjun Kharge, elected president, is likely to be an obedient rubber stamp of Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi — reflects the anti-intellectualism of the political class which has ruined post-independence India’s high-potential economy and deeply divided the country along caste, class and religious fault lines. A three-term MP who retained his Lok Sabha seat despite the BJP’s countrywide sweep in the past two general elections, Tharoor is not a political novice. But his disqualification is that he is highly educated with excellent command of the English language, and is a globally acclaimed former diplomat and writer. In the arid political landscape dominated by leaders with minimal or faux education qualifications, Tharoor’s excellent education and proven erudition are disqualifications. The tea leaves don’t read well for 21st century India.
ALMOST A DECADE AGO, ONE ANIL SHARMA, a general manager of this publication, resigned and started a rival magazine under the name and style of Education Today. Initially published as a print magazine in which school principals and leaders wrote their own encomiums, it currently bills itself as an education portal. However, its main business is publication of school rankings and presentation of awards to leaders in K-12 education. Yet it is plainly evident that the parameters under which schools are rated and awarded scores in Education Today are exactly similar to the parameters ideated by EducationWorld over 15 years ago. Likewise, the design and format of ET’s league tables have been blatantly plagiarised from this publication. Similarly, the awards function at which schools highly ranked in ET surveys are presented certificates and trophies, is fashioned on our own. But this year, Sharma and ET have taken plagiarism to a new high. Its 2022-23 awards function was held on the same date (October 11) in the same city (Gurgaon), in a hostelry a few hundred metres down the road from Leela, Gurgaon where the EWISR 2022-23 awards conclave was being staged. Clearly the ET leadership’s calculus was that a substantial proportion of the 1,400 school leaders from across the country who throng the EducationWorld Awards conclave, would drop by to collect ET awards from next door. On understanding that imitation is the best form of flattery, your editors have not initiated legal action for copyright violation and passing off against Sharma and ET. But one wonders about the ethics of not a few respected school principals who tacitly condone ET’s brazen plagiarisation by eagerly accepting the awards of this me-too enterprise. Presumably, they also turn a blind eye to their students indulging in shameless plagiarisation.
THERE’S A RECKLESS, BULL-IN-A-CHINA-SHOP defining characteristic of the top leadership of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in power at the Centre since 2014. On Hindi Diwas (September 14), heir-apparent Union home minister Amit Shah resurrected the dormant issue of the country’s national language by issuing an appeal to all state governments to communicate with the Centre in Hindi, which in his opinion is the national language. This has aroused the wrath of several state governments in southern India, especially Tamil Nadu, opposed to the imposition of “Hindi imperialism” on uniquely multilingual India. The latest unguided missile fired by the BJP leadership hell-bent on promoting Hindi — the lingua franca of India’s most backward BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh states) — is to provide medical education, i.e, the entire MBBS programme in Hindi with Madhya Pradesh launching first year MBBS textbooks written in Hindi on October 16. Unsurprisingly, the Federation of All India Medical Associations has opposed this peremptory initiative, declaring the textbooks sub-standard. Admittedly, there is a case for teaching medicine and every other subject in Hindi and vernacular languages. However in a uniquely multilingual nation with 121 languages and 270 mother tongues (Berlitz 2021) in which 300 million adults are illiterate in their own native tongues, such monumental initiatives need adequate and meticulous preparation. First, bilingual medical graduates highly proficient in English and Hindi need to be identified, incentivised and commissioned to write the necessary textbooks, a task utterly beyond Madhya Pradesh or any other BIMARU government, whose universities routinely certify graduates who can’t write a coherent paragraph in any language. Regrettably, there is a distressing tendency within the BJP leadership to launch initiatives of great pith and moment without adequate preparation and deliberation. Think demonetisation (2016) and the Covid national pandemic lockdown with four hours’ notice to the public. Now, the latest revolution in medical education.
Alokesh Sen THE DESCRIPTIVE ‘LEARNING SPACE’ EVOKES the image of classrooms in which teachers and students are involved in face-to-face interaction. Undoubtedly, classrooms are the principal theatres of teaching-learning. However, in present times of internet connectivity and hybrid education, learning spaces need to be more broadly defined. In my school, students sitting by a pond or in our meditation centre are in a learning space. Therefore, it follows that a well-designed and landscaped school will provide numerous spaces conducive to knowledge transference and absorption to improve students’ learning outcomes. Promoters of greenfield schools in particular, as also principals supervising renovation and expansion of schools, should bear in mind that designing campuses to create multiple learning spaces for pupils is a matter of great importance. Design and landscaping has to be simultaneously visionary and practical. Therefore, selecting architects/designers with in-depth knowledge of educational psychology, who take pains to understand the philosophy of specific educational institutions for whom they construct infrastructure and buildings, requires careful consideration. For instance, in the Birla Public School, Pilani, the junior school was designed by the legendary Dr. Maria Montessori herself. The design and layout of the building provides ample evidence that Dr. Montessori understood the sensory impact of diverse learning spaces and how they develop cognitive processes.
A commerce graduate of M.S. University, Baroda (Vadodara) with an MBA awarded by the blue-chip University of California at Berkeley (USA), Kiran Patel is joint managing director of the Mumbai-based American Spring & Pressing Works Pvt. Ltd (Aspee, estb.1946). The closely held Aspee is one of India’s top agri-business companies engaged in manufacturing pesticides, spraying equipment, and soil nutrients. Currently, Aspee has a headcount of 350 employees and four offices countrywide. A staunch believer in the rural and village-led national development model, Kiran Patel has also played a major role in the promotion of six colleges and five primary-secondary schools in Maharashtra and Gujarat, which have an aggregate 13,025 students and 557 faculty on their muster rolls. Born in Gujarat, the son of a school teacher, Patel’s love of reading prompted him to establish a circulating library at age 17, when he was a schoolboy. The library which had a successful run as a business enterprise, was donated to the M.D. Shah SNDT College, Malad, Mumbai in 1971. “In our family, we were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s advice that national development is dependent upon rural self-sufficiency and prosperity. Therefore, we ventured into the agri-business industry and promoted American Spring and Pressing Works on the eve of independence. Later to aid and enable India’s farmers to adopt modern farming practices and improve productivity, we ventured into rural education,” recalls Patel. The Aspee Group’s first venture into education was the Aspee College of Home Science & Nutrition (estb.1981), Dantiwada (Gujarat). Seven years later, Patel spearheaded promotion of the group’s show-piece Aspee College of Horticulture & Forestry (estb.1988) on a 1,600-acre campus in Navsari (Gujarat) promoted in partnership with the state government-run Navsari University. Subsequently, the Aspee Group established the Aspee Agribusiness Management Institute, Navsari (2007), the Aspee Shakilam Biotechnology Institute, Surat (2012), and the Aspee College of Agriculture, Porbandar (2020) in partnership with the Navsari and Junagadh agricultural universities. Under the partnership agreements, Patel serves on the Academic Council of the two universities while the universities manage and administer affiliated colleges. Currently, the total number of students in the six Aspee Group of higher education institutions number 7,913 mentored by 289 faculty. Simultaneously to ensure that rural children receive good foundational education, under the aegis of family registered charitable and education trusts, the Aspee Group promoted several Gujarati, Marathi and English-medium schools with sharp focus on educating and enabling girl children. Among them; Padmashree Anna Saheb Jhadav Kanya Vidhyalaya, Uchat, Maharashtra (estb.1971); Aspee Kanya Vidhyalaya, Bilimora, Gujarat (1979); Aspee Vidhyalaya, Marathi Medium School (1982), Aspee Children’s Academy (2015) — both at Uchat — and Aspee Nutan English Academy, Mumbai (2011), its first English-medium K-12 school affiliated with the Delhi-based CISCE examination board. Currently, the six Aspee Group of schools have 5,112 children and 268 teachers on their muster rolls. In acknowledgment of his extraordinary contribution towards developing school and higher education, the Editors and Board of Directors of EducationWorld are pleased to confer the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2022-23…
Grandson of the late Padma Bhushan Mungturam Jaipuria (1904-1978), a nationalist industrialist-educationist who promoted the Seth Anandram Jaipuria College in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1945, Delhi-based Shishir Jaipuria is Chairman and Managing Director of Ginni Filaments Ltd. Simultaneously, Shishir Jaipuria is also Chairman of the Seth Anandram Jaipuria Group of Educational Institutions (SAJGEI), an umbrella organisation comprising 12 K-12 schools, five preschools and two business management institutes which have an aggregate enrolment of 20,000 students and 800 faculty on their muster rolls. A commerce graduate of Christ Church College, Kanpur, with a law degree from the city’s DAV Law College, Shishir Jaipuria began his career as a junior executive in the family-owned Swadeshi Cotton Mills, Kanpur. During an eventful career spanning 36 years, he has held several senior positions in family companies including Managing Director of Ginni Filaments, and Director of Pioneer Ltd, which publishes The Pioneer, an English language daily in Lucknow. Among his philanthropic initiatives are a chain of public guesthouses, temples, Vedic institutions and charitable hospitals. Since Shishir Jaipuria took over as Chairman of SAJGEI, the group has expanded rapidly, particularly in the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh. SAJGEI’s flagship Seth Anandram Jaipuria School, Kanpur (estb.1974) is ranked #1 in Kanpur and #2 in Uttar Pradesh among co-ed day schools in the EducationWorld India School Rankings 2022-23. “In SAJGEI, we are committed to providing high-quality education to enable future generations to make meaningful contribution to nation building. Over the past 75 years, we have achieved continuous growth and successfully adopted contemporary digital technologies to develop the country’s abundant human resource,” says Jaipuria. A highly respected leader of industry and business, Shishir Jaipuria has held several high-profile positions in industry. Among them: Chairman of the Textiles Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI); board member of National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC); and chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI). Currently, he is Chairman of FICCI Arise, (Alliance for Re-imagining School Education) and committee member of Punjab, Haryana & Delhi Chamber of Commerce. In 2018 he was conferred a Social and Business Enterprise Responsibility Award for his CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives. With SAJGEI having drawn up a detailed plan to establish K-12 schools in tier II and III cities of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Shishir Jaipuria expects the number of SAJGEI institutions to increase to 50 countrywide by 2025. For his extraordinary and sustained commitment to promoting and establishing high quality K-12 schools, undergrad colleges and business management institutes, the Editors and Board of Directors of EducationWorld are proud to present Shishir Jaipuria, the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2022-23 and induct him into the EW Hall of Fame of Indian education.
Enthusiastic response of school promoters, trustees, principals and teachers to the 12th EWISRA conclave is proof that the educators’ community has accepted that progressive schools accord attention to several parameters of institutional excellence, not mere academic outcomes, writes Summiya Yasmeen The EducationWorld India School Rankings 2022-23 Awards (EWISRA) conclave staged in Delhi NCR on October 11-12 was an unprecedented success. The sequel of the annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (estb.2007) — the world’s largest schools ratings and ranking survey which ranks over 4,000 schools in 392 cities countrywide — EWISRA attracted participation of over 1,500 education leaders including promoters, trustees, principals and senior teachers from every corner of the country. Staged over two days at the upscale the Leela Ambience Hotel, Gurugram, high-ranked primary-secondary schools in four main categories — day, boarding, international and vintage legacy — and several subcategories under each, were awarded certificates, display plaques and encomiums. The enthusiastic response of school promoters, trustees, principals and teachers to the 12th EWISRA conclave is proof that the tectonic plates of the country’s moribund K-12 education system are shifting. It indicates that the educators’ community is increasingly accepting the basic premise of the EW rankings survey that progressive schools accord attention to several parameters of institutional excellence — not mere academic outcomes — to develop the multiple intelligences of children. In the galaxy of principals and education leaders who were conferred honours and acclaim on the occasion were Lt. Gen. Surendra Kulkarni, Mayo College, Ajmer; Dr. Craig Cook, Woodstock School, Mussoorie; Dr. Mahesh Prasad, Step by Step School, Noida; Dr. Sonal Parmar, Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai; Himmat Dhillon, Lawrence School, Sanawar; Meeta Sharma, Mussoorie International School; Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Arjun Ray and Sarojini Rao of the Indus International School, Bengaluru; Dr. Gunmeet Bindra, principal, Daly College, Indore; Dr. Arunabh Singh, the Nehru World School, Ghaziabad and Zarene Munshi, Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai. Moreover on the occasion, Shishir Jaipuria, chairman, Seth Anandram Jaipuria Educational Institutions; Kiran Patel, co-founder, Aspee Group of education institutions; Dr. Gita Karan, founder, Gitanjali Group of Schools, Hyderabad; and Dr. Bijaya K. Sahoo (posthumously), founder-chairman, SAI Group of Educational Institutions, were conferred the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Awards 2022-23 with specially written citations. The keynote address of EWISRA 2022-23 was delivered by Sanje Ratnavale, Los Angeles-based founder and president of the OESIS Network, a faculty focussed innovation network of 600 independent schools and thousands of teachers across the US. An alumnus of Harrow School and Oxford University, UK, Ratnavale delivered a brilliant lecture ‘Implementing your mission in the classroom’. Also on the packed agenda of the two-day event was felicitation of unsung high-potential schools under the EW India Grand Jury Rankings 2022-23. They were ranked by a specially constituted Grand Jury of eminent educationists and conferred awards under differentiated parameters including campus architecture and design, design thinking leadership, career counseling, high happiness quotient, SDGs committed schools etc (see p.64). EW’s partners for the event included Grayquest Education Finance Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai; Live…
EducationWorld @23 Although disappointment with achievements of this publication, which has been ploughing a lonely furrow for over two decades exceeds contentment, there is cause for some satisfaction. Today, there is substantially greater acceptance within the establishment and society of several causes consistently advocated by EducationWorld, Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen WITH PUBLICATION OF this issue, EducationWorld — The Human Development Magazine (estb.1999) completes 23 years of continuous, uninterrupted publishing. Given the thousand unnatural shocks that flesh is heir to, and formidable hurdles of public ignorance, institutional indifference and establishment hostility, uninterrupted publication of 276 issues of this pioneer education news magazine posed many a testing challenge. In retrospect even if we haven’t quite fulfilled our goal to “build the pressure of public opinion to make education the #1 item on the national agenda”, we can justifiably claim to have advanced the long neglected subject of quality education for all to at least mid-point of the national development agenda. Since no public personality or media publication is likely to proclaim the modest achievements of this outlier publication which has been ploughing a lonely furrow for the past two decades, and although disappointment exceeds contentment, there is cause for some satisfaction. Today, there is substantially greater acceptance within the establishment and society of the message consistently proclaimed by EducationWorld that universal quality K-12, if not tertiary education, is the necessary precondition for India to attain middle class nation status and national prosperity. Our message that generation of financial resources is impossible without development of human resources, has struck a resonant chord in millions of hearts across the country, and perhaps within the establishment. This is evidenced by several causes and policies consistently propounded by your editors having — without attribution as is customary — been incorporated into public policy. For instance, EW was the first strident voice in post-independence India to highlight the critical importance of professionally administered early childhood care and education (ECCE) for youngest children. In 2010, we hosted the first ever international ECCE conference in Mumbai followed by annual national ECCE conferences, and began rating and ranking the best pre-primaries in 16 cities countrywide every year. The upshot of our consistent advocacy of foundational ECCE was that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 acknowledges the critical importance of pre-primary education and has formally incorporated it into primary education. The long-standing 10+2 primary-secondary school system has been reconfigured into 5+3+3+4 to mandate compulsory foundational education for all children starting from age three. A second notable achievement of this publication (together with stable mate ParentsWorld) has been to successfully impact the importance of well-rounded, holistic, primary-secondary education upon educators (promoters, principals and teachers) to develop the multiple intelligences of children. In 2007, EducationWorld ideated and introduced the sui generis annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) survey. In sharp contrast with the global practice of assessing schools on the single criterion of learning outcomes, in the annual EWISR, schools are assessed and evaluated under several parameters — teacher welfare and development,…
BRAZILIAN ACADEMICS HOPE THAT THE country’s upcoming final round of the presidential election on October 30 will bring an end to President Jair Bolsonaro’s “war on science”. But most admit that, even if the populist leader loses, his influence will be slow to fade. All polls ahead of the first round of voting on October 2 indicated that the divisive politician, who has led Brazil since 2019, was likely to lose to rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leftist former president — known as Lula — staging a comeback after corruption charges against him were dropped. Bolsonaro has indicated that he might contest the result, and there were fears he might try to stage a coup, but scientists who have been subjected to savage funding cuts and a campaign of intimidation are quietly hopeful that things are about to change. “This is a very important moment in Brazil, one of the most important elections we have had in years,” says Luiz Davidovich, a former president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. “Brazil has all the conditions to become a very powerful economic country, and we need a government that pays full attention to science, technology and innovation as the main instruments for developing this, and one that is committed to developing education at all levels.” Bolsonaro has overseen a reduction in funding for Brazil’s federal universities to levels not seen since 2005, with the ministry of science, technology and innovation’s budget cut by more than 50 percent since 2013. Prof. Davidovich, emeritus professor of physics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, says the cuts have left universities in a “very bad situation,” struggling to pay for basic services such as electricity, water and the internet. “Some of them are now negotiating with utility companies to delay payments because they don’t have the money but don’t want the university to be closed. It is a very tragic situation,” he adds. Bolsonaro’s scepticism for science — shown most clearly by his response to the Covid-19 pandemic — has also served to undermine the scientific community in the eyes of the public, and Prof. Davidovich says he knows scientists subjected to death threats and having to hire security guards. “It has been a war against science. We have faced some very severe situations in Brazil, and I hope this is a lesson for others,” says Davidovich. Marcelo Knobel, professor of physics and former rector at the University of Campinas, says that constant attacks on universities as “nests of communists”, where lots of money is spent with no societal benefit, has left a lasting impression on Bolsonaro’s supporters that will be hard to overturn. Lula, a trade unionist who himself has little formal education, oversaw several initiatives to improve quality and access to Brazilian higher education during his last stint as president. But he faces a markedly different economic environment this time around if he does win the election. “He was lucky as at that time the economy was booming. He…
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA (CPC) congresses are rubber-stamp affairs. The 2,300 delegates of the 20th Congress that recently concluded in Beijing, had no chance of scuppering the decisions — already made in secret — that were unveiled at the event. Most of them had undergone training in a vast system of schools that the party uses to transmit skills and ideology to bureaucrats. In the run-up to the 20th Congress that concluded on October 22, several provinces reported that lessons were dispensed in these schools to congress delegates who have no official titles (model workers, farmers and the like). The classes focus on the need for loyalty to the party’s leader, Xi Jinping, and on instilling the principle that “whatever the party asks me to do, I will do”, as one account put it. Typically, the training lasts two days. Normally, however, the students are officials. In a recent paper, David Shambaugh of George Washington University wrote that nearly all of China’s roughly 50 million official functionaries, from Central government ministers down to township chiefs, have passed through the training system, usually for mid-career stints ranging from one week to two years. Shambaugh describes the system, comprising about 7,000 institutions, as a “critical cog in the machinery” of party control. Subjects taught range from Marxist theory to the nitty-gritty of public administration. Some even grant degrees, including MBAs. The most prominent are known as party schools. Before Xi Ping came to power, these schools sometimes encouraged innovative thinking. Students talked about how to make the party more democratic with freer elections for its leaders. Schools often invited foreign scholars to lecture, even on liberal democracy. At the Central Party School in Beijing, officials “might be discreet in talking to strangers or in public, but their internal discussion in class is unbounded”, China Daily, a state newspaper, enthused in 2011. But Charlotte Lee of Berkeley City College, who has written a book on the training system, says the schools are now under greater centralised control, enforced by inspection teams. What freedom party schools might have enjoyed “has faded”, she says. President Xi made this clear in a speech in 2015 at the Central Party School. “On the important principle of upholding the party’s leadership, we must be very clear-headed, bright-eyed and firm in our stance, and we must not have any ambiguity or wavering,” he said. Cai Xia, an exiled former teacher of the school, says that Xi showed “dictatorial” tendencies in 2009 when, as the school’s president but not yet the party’s boss, he warned the faculty against criticising party policies. The same trend is evident at schools that specialise in teaching management skills to bureaucrats. These were set up in the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping, who wanted to establish a professional civil service and (for a while) even encouraged efforts to create a wider gap between party committees and the government apparatus. Under Xi, cadres have been incessantly reminded that party committees hold absolute sway. For delegates prior to…
BITTER LEADERSHIP ROW AT THE WORLD’S most pan-national university has cost it almost half year’s revenue, in an escalation of the economically and politically fuelled funding insecurity that bedevils the institution. Staff at the University of the South Pacific (USP) say that the institution’s biggest contributor, the Fijian government, has withheld F$78 million (Rs.275 crore) of promised funding since its dispute with vice chancellor Pal Ahluwalia erupted in 2020. Fiji is the biggest of the 12 island nations that jointly own the university, contributing more than 75 percent of its staff and providing 55 percent of students. Its government now refuses to pay its share of operating expenses, normally about one-sixth of institutional revenue, until Prof. Ahluwalia is replaced. The government’s opponents are outraged. National Federation Party leader and former USP academic Biman Prasad has promised to reinstate Fiji as “a sound and reliable” USP member that “honours its promises” if he and running mate Sitiveni Rabuka, who heads the People’s Alliance party, win the general election due later this year. Premila Kumar, incumbent education minister, says grants to USP won’t be paid until the government’s allegations against Prof. Ahluwalia, which now include bullying and nepotism, are independently investigated. USP’s two staff unions counter that the allegations against Ahluwalia, who is now based in Samoa, have already been dismissed in five independent inquiries. They say that having failed to remove Prof. Ahluwalia for exposing financial mismanagement and misconduct by his predecessors, the government was taking it out on the “premier regional university” and its students. Economic difficulties in USP’s three biggest member countries — Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu — have also curbed the supply of loans and allowances. In 2020, Fiji slashed funding for its tertiary education loan scheme (TELS) by more than one-third. As a result, the school mark threshold for loans eligibility was increased while the value of associated scholarships was reduced. Meanwhile, Solomons and Vanuatu students routinely face protracted delays in receiving government living allowances, leaving them vulnerable to “loan sharks” and unscrupulous landlords in Fiji, according to the Pacific Advocate. All this threatens what has become an increasingly important income stream for USP, with student fees contributing 39 percent of institutional revenue by 2018, up from 19 percent a decade earlier. Former USP law lecturer Tess Newton Cain said the university’s current financial crisis is a dramatic example of the challenges it faces routinely, as one or other of its member states fails to hand over its “stake”. “Solomon Islands had years of struggling to pay its way at USP because they just don’t have the wherewithal to keep up the payments,” says Dr. Newton Cain, who now heads the Pacific Hub at Griffith University’s Asia Institute. “If a country can’t afford to pay, then they can’t afford to pay.” But now the biggest member country is the defaulter, to the gall of other states that have long envied the economic benefits Fiji enjoys as host of the university’s headquarters and easily its biggest…
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A PARTY FOR WESTERNERS. Young men snogged in the corridor. Girls downed tumblers of wine. The real shock, though, was the hubbub of voices. Though this was a gathering of young Emiratis, almost everyone was chatting in English, nowadays the dominant tongue of Gulf countries. On paper, Arabic is one of the world’s most successful languages. Over 400 million people speak it. But Arabs speak a plethora of dialects. Poor education in Arabic is eroding its purity, as English spreads. Many primary-school children chatter in a hybrid of English and Arabic. “Within a century, it may be a dead language,” rues a British former diplomat and Arabic expert. The language’s decline reflects recent history. Civil wars have forced millions out of education. Baghdad and Damascus, once citadels of Arab nationalism and culture, have been ravaged by violence. “Language reflects how powerful you are,” says Ebtesam al-Ketbi, an Emirati scholar. “The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have all kept their languages, we haven’t.” “People running our countries often don’t speak good Arabic anymore,” rues a Bahraini. English is the gravest threat. In 2017, the Arab Youth Survey, taken by a pollster in Dubai, found that UAE Arabs already use it more than Arabic. Saudi Arabia has become the most recent Gulf state to teach schoolchildren English from kindergarten. A large minority of Gulf citizens’ children go to private schools where English is the main language of tuition. Ms Kebti says “no one can stop” the spread of English. A World Bank study reported last year that by the time they are in their fourth year at school, many Arab children struggle to write a coherent sentence in Arabic. The fragmentation of Arabic is a feature of Arab disunity. An array of dialects with their different vocabularies, syntax and accents has infiltrated bastions of standard Arabic such as parliaments, television shows and publishing houses. To bolster circulation, publishers are printing more books in dialect. In 2019, Nadia Kamel won a top literary prize in Egypt for a novel in dialect. Television news channels still broadcast in standard Arabic, so many Arabs prefer to get their news from social media, often in dialects written in Latin characters. Disney now dubs its films in Egyptian dialect. Expressions of love are said to sound stilted in the official lingo. Champions of Arabic are trying to fight back. Arabic will, of course, remain the language of the holy Koran. “We think Arabic is more living than Latin because of its presence in the media, sermons and speeches,” says Hossam Abouzahr, founder of The Living Arabic Project, an online platform that strives to revive the language. “Latin survived in the churches for centuries despite having no native speakers,” he notes hopefully.
CHINESE UNIVERSITIES ARE CLOSING IN ON US global dominance of higher education, but internationalisation has proved to be a weak link for the Asian superpower, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings. The biggest global ranking to date reveals that the research supremacy of American universities is waning, in part because of a growing gap in output between elite universities and the rest. When it comes to research quality, as measured by citations, China is catching up. Over the past year, China’s average score for citations increased significantly, from 55.6 to 58.0; in the same period, the US score dropped slightly, from 70.0 to 69.4 (based on universities ranked in both years). Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the third and fourth highest-scoring universities in China, respectively, increased their overall score significantly this year, driven largely by robust performances on citations. The US has 34 universities in the Top 100, down from 38 last year (2021) and 41 five years ago. China, meanwhile, has boosted its representation with seven universities in the Top 100, up from six last year and three five years ago. The Chinese government has consistently invested in higher education and research and development for more than 20 years, with funding specifically targeted at developing world-class universities, training scholars at top institutions in the West and building capacity in China. Wei Zhang, associate professor at the University of Leicester and an expert on higher education in China, says the country is now “unequivocally” a science superpower. “The quality of research output sourced from China is catching up with the US and will continue the upward trend. China’s concerted efforts and actions have paved its way to transform the global publishing landscape,” she says. But the picture is not entirely rosy for the Asian powerhouse. The rankings data also reveal that internationalisation is proving a weak link, with all four measures of the activity reflecting a decline. China’s average score for international outlook dropped from 34.1 last year to 32.6, based on all Chinese universities ranked in 2022 and 2023; the country’s average score for international students slipped from 33.9 to 32.4, international co-authorship from 24.0 to 22.5, and international staff from 44.3 to 43.0. Simon Marginson, director of the Centre for Global Higher Education at Oxford University posits that as Chinese scientists and doctoral students have become less welcome in some countries than they used to be, “it is likely that sooner or later, higher education in China will (be) less welcoming to outsiders from at least those countries. That is the logic of international relations.” Stephen Toope, who stepped down in October as vice chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said China’s emerging role as a science power means Western universities should collaborate with their Chinese counterparts. “It’s a huge problem if we can’t collaborate, especially with China,” he says. “No single institution, no single country, even the biggest, has the capacity to do all of the work that’s…
FEARS OF A BROADER DRAFT COULD BE USED to suppress opposition to the Ukraine war and further limit free speech on Russian campuses, giving universities a “powerful tool” to silence potential dissenters. To date, the Kremlin has said it is drafting only reservists to fight in Ukraine, with the presidential decree explicitly exempting students at public universities. But there’s anxiety that more young recruits — including those with no combat history — could soon be tapped as Russian losses mount. While university students are expected to remain exempt from Russia’s obligatory year-long military service, the war effort has increased the risk for students who step out of line, warn academics. “If you’re expelled, you go straight to the army… the universities now have an extremely powerful tool to pressure students indulging in social or political activities,” says Anna Lyubimtseva, coordinator of the Freedom Degree project, which fields queries from Russian students facing dismissal. Institutions could use the threat of conscription not only to stifle students’ criticism of the war, but also to maintain control over “basically everything which will make an impact on universities’ image”, she adds. Igor Chirikov, senior researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, says with an ongoing war, “the stakes are much higher” for young men. “The danger of being mobilised is still there for students, which is why a lot of them prefer to flee the country, despite assurances,” he says. Dr. Chirikov says that inside and between institutions, mobilisation has created rifts. Distance learners are not covered under the exemption for public university students, for example. More than 300,000 students at private universities are also not exempt under the September 21 order. But while Russia’s defence ministry agreed to broaden the scope of the exemption on October 1, saying that private institutions would also benefit from an exemption, their earlier exclusion sent a message, says Chirikov.
-Autar Nehru (Delhi) AJAY GUPTA is founder-CEO of S.K. Educations Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based company that owns the Bachpan Play School and Academic Heights Public Schools (AHPS) brands. Over the past 20 years since Gupta ventured into K-12 education, the number of Bachpan and AHPS franchisee schools has multiplied to 1,200 with an aggregate enrolment of 100,000 students mentored by 7,500 teachers. An indefatigable educator, despite being wheelchair-bound after he was stricken by polio when he was seven months old, Gupta has also co-founded the Sonepat-based Rishihood University (estb.2020) and Prismart Gyan Era Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd (2013), a company offering e-learning solutions to K-12 schools, and registered the Hum Honge Kamyab Foundation (2018) to promote and provide special needs children and youth access to academic and sports education. Newspeg. Bachpan is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. History. Gupta’s edupreneurial passage is a story of extraordinary grit and determination — of a differently abled individual who overcame formidable hurdles to succeed. Born into a business family he was struck with polio in infancy and suffered 70 percent locomotive disability. Despite paralysis in both legs and left hand, using calipers, young Gupta attended a local government primary before transferring to Ramjas School, New Delhi. But with the school providing neither ramps nor elevators, he had to drop out of school and completed secondary school through the National Institute of Open Schooling. Determined to make his own way in the world of business and industry, Gupta experimented with several vocations including retail, chit funds and stockbroking before promoting S.K. Educations Pvt. Ltd in 1999. However in 2001, as a parent of a four-year-old daughter, Gupta became deeply disillusioned with the quality of pre-primary education provided by preschools in Delhi. “Well aware that early childhood education is the foundation of all learning, I sold my computer education business and ventured into the preschools sector and franchised our first Bachpan play school in Jalandhar, Punjab in 2002,” he recalls. Applying his knowledge of the franchise business, Gupta persisted with the franchised model in his new venture. S.K. Educations doesn’t own or operate any of its schools. Instead, it offers a range of services from market research, curriculum and pedagogy to teacher training to all franchisee schools whose number has grown to 1,200. Future plans. An inspirational edupreneur who hasn’t let his disability come in the way of his mission to provide high-quality early childhood education to India’s youngest children, Gupta is determined to roll out Bachpan preschools and AHPS K-12 schools countrywide under the franchise model. “A precondition of licensing Bachpan and AHPS schools is that they have to be entirely friendly towards differently abled children. Contrary to the popular imagination, India’s 27 million differently abled citizens, especially children, can be transformed into national resources if they are provided child-friendly education,” says Gupta, whose life story validates this valuable insight.
Dilip Thakore (Bengaluru) JAMES COSTAIN is the newly appointed Head of School at the Legacy School (estb.1984), Bengaluru, ranked among India’s Top 10 international day schools, and #1 in Karnataka and Bengaluru in the latest EW India School Rankings 2022-23. Affiliated with the UK-based Cambridge International and Geneva-based International Baccalaureate (IB) exam boards, Legacy School has 860 students mentored by 100 teachers on its muster rolls. Newspeg. Costain was appointed headmaster at Legacy in June this year. History. An alumnus of UK’s Northumbria and Exeter universities, Costain began his career in 1990 as a leisure industry consultant and subsequently in an offshore financial company. Two years later, he signed up with the Longridge Tower School, Scotland as games master and physics teacher (1993-96). This was followed by a decade-long stint at the privately promoted Lord Wandsworth College, Hampshire, where he served in multiple roles and was promoted to head of higher secondary school. In 2006, he took on his first overseas assignment with the British School, Nepal where he taught science and served as head of higher secondary school. In 2011, he returned to the UK to pursue a Master’s degree in education leadership at the University College of London where he researched K-12 education models and systems worldwide. Unsurprisingly, given his deep study of best schools and education systems, Costain received a flood of offers from private schools around the world, immediately after postgraduation. In 2012 he accepted an appointment as headmaster of senior school at the Oakley College, Canary Islands, Spain. Three years later, he moved to St. George International, Koln (Germany) comprising four English-medium schools with an aggregate enrolment of 2,500 students. After a two-year stint (2015-17), craving further “academic adventure and experience,” Costain signed up to head the British International School, Ukraine (2017-19). In 2019, this peripatetic primary-secondary education leader returned to the UK and started Ethos Education, an international consultancy providing institutional improvement advice to schools around the world. Direct talk. “During my long and varied career in private schools in Europe and Asia, I have become increasingly aware of the vital importance of teachers transforming into lead learners in their classrooms. The mission to introduce and propagate this pedagogy to the teachers and educators community in India which hosts the world’s largest number of children, drew me to Bengaluru and the Legacy School, whose values and mission are congruent with mine. During my tenure here, I intend to invest my learning and experience to develop a professional development model which will be globally accepted,” says Costain. Legacy School, Bengaluru’s brain gain may well prove to be India’s as well.
Against the backdrop of growing wealth inequality and hunger, a rising wave of philanthropy funding is gathering momentum around the world and in India. According to the Global Philanthropy Report 2021, the education sector is specially favoured by philanthropic foundations and high networth individuals, writes Dilip Thakore TWO MOMENTOUS RECENTLY released reports on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of EducationWorld — The Human Development Magazine (regst.1999), have the potential to greatly influence the future of India’s children who despite loud official protestations to the contrary, are floundering in shallows and misery. On October 11, Oxfam International released the fourth edition of its Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (CRII) 2022. The index reviews the “spending, tax and labour policies and actions” of 161 countries worldwide, including India, during the period 2020-22. “Covid-19 has increased inequality worldwide, as the poorest people were hit hardest by both the disease and its profound economic impacts. Yet CRII 2022 shows clearly that most of the world’s governments failed to mitigate this dangerous rise in inequality. Despite the biggest global health emergency in a century, half of low and lower-middle-income countries saw the share of health spending fall during the pandemic, half the countries tracked by the CRI Index cut the share of social protection spending, 70 percent cut the share of education spending, while two-thirds of countries failed to increase their minimum wage in line with gross domestic product (GDP). Ninety-five percent of countries failed to increase taxation of the richest people and corporations. At the same time, a small group of governments from across the world bucked this trend, taking clear actions to combat inequality, putting the rest of the world to shame.” As a special India report included in this survey elaborates, the government of India — a perennial laggard in social welfare spending, especially on education and healthcare — isn’t in the latter category. Although Oxfam International is well-known for its left of centre ideological moorings, its experience of conducting wealth inequalities, poverty measurement and hunger surveys for over eight decades commands respect, even if the anti-diluvian solutions anchored in obsolete communist/ socialist ideology, are suspect. Founded by Oxford University academics way back in 1942, Oxfam has established a global reputation for fundraising to provide financial and rehabilitation aid to people and communities devastated by calamities such as floods, earthquakes, famine, war etc. Currently, its international secretariat is based in Nairobi (Kenya) with offices in Addis Ababa, Washington D.C, New York, Geneva, and Brussels. Moreover, it has eponymous affiliates in 21 countries including India (estb.2008), an annual budget of $ 1 billion and 196 employees worldwide on its pay roll. In short, its survey reports and data — even if not its solutions — need to be accorded great respect. Perhaps coincidentally but simultaneously, two other respectable NGOs — the Dublin (Ireland)-based Concern Worldwide (estb.1968) and the Bonn (Germany)-based Welthungerhilf (1962) — published the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022, in which India is included among 35 countries suffering ‘serious’ mass hunger.…
-Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) KUSUM BHANDARI and PARIMAL DAS are joint conveners of Udayan Care Kolkata (UCK), the regional chapter of Udayan Care, an NGO founded in Delhi in 2002 by social activist Kiran Modi. Udayan Care provides shelter, education scholarships and vocational training programmes to homeless children. In 2007, philanthropist-educationist Bhandari and Das, former president of the Rotary Club of Kolkata and banking professional, promoted UCK, with funding support from industrialists Suresh Neotia and B.D. Sureka. Currently, the parent Udayan Care has 28 chapters countrywide. Newspeg. In November, UCK is all set to induct 400 girl students into the Udayan Shalini Fellowship Programme — the NGO’s flagship initiative that prepares meritorious underprivileged girl students in the age group 16-22 for higher education and the job market. Fellows are selected through a careful evaluation process which includes a written test, interview and home visits. Applicants should be girls/women from households with monthly incomes below Rs.15,000 with 60 percent-plus average in class X or XII school-leaving board exams. History. Introduced in 2002, the Udayan Shalini Fellowship Programme (USFP) has provided scholarships and job-readiness programmes to 13,000 girl students countrywide with the Kolkata chapter contributing 2,600 beneficiaries. “Once selected for USFP, women students are provided extensive training in English, computer and communication skills. Managers and executives from blue-chip companies such as PwC, Genpact, CTS, Exide, Infinity Infotech, Tata, and EY conduct regular programmes to identify skill gaps and we address them with specially designed training programmes,” says Das, an alumnus of Calcutta, Guwahati and Dibrugarh universities and former assistant general manager at Allahabad Bank, who co-founded UCK in 2007. UCK conducts 12-15 month programmes in its state-of-the-art learning centre in Kolkata which houses two classrooms, auditorium, computer lab, mentoring and conference rooms. Direct talk. “Most of our young women fellows are first generation learners from underprivileged homes in Kolkata who haven’t received any career counselling and mentoring, especially in government schools. Our fellowship programme fills this lacuna, by providing them professional guidance, training and counselling as well as monetary support to pursue higher education,” says Das. Future plans. The duo believes that women’s education and emancipation is the prerequisite of national development. With the UCK experiment having proved successful in Kolkata, they have finalised plans to roll out the fellowship programme in smaller towns such as Shantiniketan and Siliguri. “Both UCK and our parent Udayan Care have been receiving excellent support from reputed corporate houses because over the past two decades, we have demonstrated transparency and credibility by way of learning outcomes. I am sure we will be able to expand this programme into rural Bengal and empower a substantial number of underprivileged girl children,” he says.
Nishant Saxena (Lucknow) An extra-curricular activity of RANJEET SINGH YADAV, a sub-inspector of the Uttar Pradesh state police has transformed him into a press and social media star in India’s most populous state (215 million). In his off-duty hours, this Ayodhya-based khaki wale guruji (‘teacher in khaki’) runs an informal school for 65 children under the shade of a peepal tree in the slums of Jaisinghpur ward of the holy city. Newspeg. One year since Yadav started teaching slum children in his off-duty hours, he has become a media star with the national newspapers, television channels and social media showering this policeman with encomiums for his sustained commitment to educating out-of-school children. History. Born into a family of poor farmers in Azamgarh village, Yadav and his three siblings experienced severe financial hardships in childhood, but made their way through school and college on scholarships and donations. “Though all of us are now well-settled, we remember the pain of extreme poverty and deprivation, and understand the importance of education support, however small, in a child’s life,” recalls Yadav, who pressed on to acquire a postgrad degree in philosophy from Banaras Hindu University. In 2011, Yadav was appointed a constable in the UP state police and promoted to the position of sub-inspector four years later. Last November while patrolling Ayodhya’s Naya Ghat on a cold winter morning, Yadav noticed a number of young children begging for alms. Perturbed by their lack of warm clothing, he followed them to their homes in the slums of Jaisinghpur ward, and discovered that none of them were attending government schools because they didn’t have “identity documents”. “I bought notebooks, pencils, erasers, and mats for 60 children from my savings and started Apna School (‘my school’) on an open ground in Jaisinghpur ward,” recounts Yadav, who teaches children before and after duty hours on working days. Direct talk. “It’s been one year since I began teaching these children basic reading and writing. Recently, I divided them into three groups according to their learning abilities choosing specific lessons for each group to ensure they upgrade their reading and writing skills. Moreover with many people writing about Apna School in the media and videos going viral on social media, members of the public have begun to visit the school and donate clothes and food to our children. I have also persuaded some local businessmen to donate books, shoes and stationery,” he says. Future plans. Though this good cop has gone beyond the call of duty to teach slum children, he is worried about the future of Apna School as he could be posted out of Ayodhya any time. “I want to register a foundation with the mission to run Apna School with trained teachers. I have also contacted several NGOs to help our children procure the necessary documents required for their admission into the local government school. Every child has the right to quality education and it is the duty of government to provide it,” says Yadav. An exemplary…
Runa Mukherjee Parikh (Ahmedabad) A 14-member team of Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore (KCT, estb.1984) bagged the communication prize (€2,000) in the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge (MEBC) international competition, in which technical universities from 21 countries participated. This year’s MEBC version 9.0 held in Monaco on July 6-9 required participating teams to build sustainable boats within specific design parameters and race them against each other. Among 16 teams in the energy class category, KCT’s Team Sea Sakthi was ranked #6 based on their performance in the qualifiers, endurance and slalom races. Team Sea Sakthi— comprising engineering undergrads Mohan, Anjana Prasad, Manav R. Samant, Kishore K, Swaminathan C, Pratigya S, Shakthieswaran M, Anandh B, Vikash S, Naveen V, Gerontius Leo L, Vekash S, Barathraj M and Sanaa Mohammad — was mentored by KCT Garage, a student research and innovation hub established to prepare teams for national and international-level sports competitions. Technically and financially supported by the Pune-based Legrand India Pvt. Ltd, a company that manufactures electrical and digital building infrastructure, and Quench Chargers (Ador Digatron Pvt. Ltd), an electric charging solutions company and several other firms, the team submitted its prototype to MEBC in December 2021, and after it was approved, designed and fabricated their speed boat using a zero-emission energy propulsion engine. “We decided to use aluminium to build the cockpit of our boat christened Yali. The boat is propelled by a Torqeedo electric motor of the Netherlands-based Rim Drive Technology powered by a 200AH lithium iron phosphate battery and flexible solar panels as a secondary source. Yali was successfully tested in Chennai port prior to the competition,” says Sanaa, spokesperson of Team Sea Shakti. Now back in KCT, members of Team Sea Sakthi are enriched by the experience. “Designing, fabricating and racing our boat against college teams from 21 countries was an invaluable learning and benchmarking experience. It provided validation that our engineering programmes are as good as any in the world,” says Sanaa. Also read: Swelling demand for maritime archaeologists
Somasekar Mulugu (Hyderabad) India’s women’s boxing star Nikhat Zareen (26) who won a gold medal in the lightweight category at the Commonwealth Games which concluded in Birmingham on August 8, and was crowned world champ at the International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Boxing Championships held in Istanbul three months earlier, is not resting on her laurels. She is training six hours daily in national boxing camps in Delhi, and at the world-class Suchitra Academy, Hyderabad to retain her world champion title at the IBA Championship scheduled to be held next March. Born into a sports loving family — father Jameel Ahmed was a junior national footballer and state-level athlete, and younger sister Afran (17) is a promising badminton player — Nikhat, a humanities graduate of AV College, Hyderabad, attributes her success entirely to extraordinary family support. “I owe a lot to my father who inducted me into athletics and fitness training. Moreover, my coaches — Mohd. Shamshamuddin, I.V. Rao and Emani Chiranjeevi — motivated me at various stages of my career,” she recalls. “I am determined to retain my IBA title early next year. That will be the first step towards winning the gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics,” adds Nikhat with steely determination. Introduced to the sport at age 13 (2009) at a beginners’ camp on the invitation of veteran boxing coach Mohd. Shamshamuddin in her native Nizamabad district, Nikhat took to this pugilistic sport like a duck to water. Within six months, she won her first gold medal at the National Rural Games in Karimnagar, Telangana. Shortly thereafter, she was selected by the Sports Authority of India for training under I.V. Rao, a Dronacharya awardee, at its facility in Visakhapatnam. In 2010, she won a gold medal at the Erode National Games and a year later, won the World Junior and Youth Championship in Antalya, Turkey. “Women in boxing is a new phenomenon globally, but it is becoming increasingly popular as women are asserting their equality with men worldover. Sania Mirza, India’s women tennis star, who has won several Grand Slam doubles and mixed doubles championships is also from Hyderabad. I hope our example will encourage Muslim girls in India to participate and shine in sports and games,” says Nikhat.
Hindi language zealots should calm down
Sanjaya Baru OFTEN DISPARAGED BY INTELLECTUALS, no institution has played a bigger role in the popularisation of Hindi across the country than Bollywood cinema. When crowds throng cinema halls in Madurai and Kolkata, Vijayawada and Vadodara to watch Rajesh Khanna romance Hema Malini, they voluntarily learnt the language in which this Punjabi matinee idol was wooing a Tambrahm beauty. No, it is not the Hindi Prachar Sabha that popularised Hindi. It is popular cinema that did it. Same goes for couture. The Punjabi salwar kurta is ubiquitous in rural south India because young women prefer easy-to-wear clothing, not because the home minister of India wanted them to. Ditto for cuisine. Delhi’s restaurants are full of people demanding dosa, while paneer has entered the cuisine of non-milk consuming Kerala households. Food, clothing and language are uniting people countrywide without officious diktats from elevated pulpits. Union home minister Amit Shah should relax. So too should all militant Hindi-Hindu organisations that are insistent upon legislating Hindi as India’s national language.